$50 million raised. Growth flatlined overnight. Flo Crivello had to fire two-thirds of his team when COVID ended and TeamFlow collapsed. In this episode, founders will learn how Flo pivoted to build Lindy, an AI SaaS platform that hit high 7-figures by repositioning from "AI employee" to "Zapier of AI."
Flo reveals the "Notion head fake" positioning strategy that made his AI SaaS accessible to early adopters, why shipping an embarrassingly broken product was essential, and how tweeting 20 times a day for years led to 70,000 waitlist signups from a single video.
Lindy is an AI SaaS agent platform with 35 employees, generating high seven figures in revenue after raising $52 million. Flo climbed the "ladder of abstraction" from meeting summaries to full workflow automation—and hit product-market fit when he repositioned against something customers already knew.
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🔑 Key Lessons
- 🔄 Pivot Fast When the Market Disappears: Flo could see COVID waves on TeamFlow's growth chart. When the market vanished, he fired two-thirds of his team and pivoted to AI SaaS within months.
- 🧠 Climb the Ladder of Abstraction: Lindy started as "update Salesforce after meetings" and kept generalizing until Flo realized he was building an AI SaaS agent platform.
- 📱 Tweet 20 Times a Day for Years: Flo's 70,000-person waitlist came from a single video because he'd spent years building a Twitter audience.
- 🛠️ Ship Embarrassingly Broken AI SaaS Products: Lindy's v1 literally sent emails saying "the user wants me to send an email." Early adopters were forgiving because they bought the vision.
- 💰 Rebuild at $100K MRR If It Doesn't Work: Despite early traction, Flo spent 5-6 months rebuilding because the AI SaaS product was "falling well short" of customer needs.
- 🎯 "Zapier for AI" Positioning Wins: The AI SaaS product clicked when they positioned against something customers already knew.
Chapters
- Introduction and Winston Churchill quote
- What Lindy is and the AI SaaS agent market
- Revenue, team size, and $52M raised
- Background at Uber and starting TeamFlow
- COVID waves matching TeamFlow's growth chart
- Where the Lindy AI SaaS idea came from
- Firing two-thirds of the team to pivot
- The AI agent landscape in early 2023
- Launching with a demo video
- Building a Twitter following with 20 tweets a day
- The 70,000 person waitlist
- Shipping embarrassingly broken products
- Rebuilding everything at $100K MRR
- The "Zapier for AI" positioning breakthrough
- YouTuber discovery triggers explosive growth
- Lightning round
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